A Biased Review of Sociophysics

Various aspects of recent sociophysics research are shortly reviewed: Schelling model as an example for lack of interdisciplinary cooperation, opinion dynamics, combat, and citation statistics as an example for strong interdisciplinarity.Comment: 16 pages for J. Stat. Phys. including 2 figures and numerous reference

A century of trends in adult human height

Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3-19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8-144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries

A peek inside the neurosecretory brain through Orthopedia lenses

The wealth of expression and functional data presented in this overview discloses the homeogene Orthopedia (Otp) as critical for the development of the hypothalamic neuroendocrine system of vertebrates. Specifically, the results depict the up-to-date portrait of the regulation and functions of Otp. The development of neuroendocrine nuclei relies on Otp from fish to mammals, as demonstrated for several peptide and hormone releasing neurons. Additionally, the activity of Otp is essential for the induction of the dopaminergic phenotype in the hypothalamus of vertebrates. Recent insights into the pathways required for Otp regulation have revealed the implication of the main extracellular signals acting during hypothalamic development. Alterations in these pathways are involved in several neuronal disorders, and the resultant downstream misregulation of Otp might impair the development of the hypothalamus, and be therefore responsible for the neuroendocrine dysfunctions that typify these diseases